Ruben Amorim has overseen his first Man Utd training session, instantly proving he might be better than Tony Adams. But not good enough to sell Antony.
Amorim was finally able to take training after his visa issues were sorted, although international duty meant he was without a number of players who might expect to start against Ipswich on Sunday.
That game will offer the first true look at what Amorimball might bring to Old Trafford, but until then the world will have to live off what few morsels a short clip of the training session had to offer, including a brief look at the actual giant called up from the academy to fill in.
Here are five things we officially definitely learned from Amorim’s first training session as Man Utd manager.
1) It would not be a new manager’s first training session without the deployment of a player in a slightly different position. No action sums up the virtue of a fresh pair of eyes more than a coach coming in, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the squad they have inherited, and revising roles.
The alterations are always minor in the grand scheme of things, but supporters desperate to see The Vision will merrily latch onto them in lieu of actual developments.
Antony at wing-back was a possible change suggested around the time of Amorim’s first Old Trafford links, forced by two key factors: the coach’s preferred 3-4-3 formation; and the need to crowbar an £86m mistake into the team in any feasible way.
The loss of certain players to international duty made it inevitable that Antony would slot into a first-team training XI in some capacity, with the Brazilian surely warming the right wing-back seat for Noussair Mazraoui, Diogo Dalot or Literally Anyone Else.
Perhaps a seven-minute highlights clip from training could never have captured Antony’s generational brilliance in a new position, but it is interesting to note that while the session features players almost exclusively progressing the ball through forward passes and crosses, he attempts the only thing vaguely resembling skill or a dribble.
Antony at one stage encounters a dead-end which can only realistically be navigated by the use of a right foot, a problem he predictably solves by turning back, feigning a left-footed pass and then making that very same left-footed pass to poor Leny Yoro, whose surgically repaired knee might be grateful for a bit more support down that flank by the end of the week.
Good luck trying to ‘offload’ Antony in January, is the message here.
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2) There has never been a single association football player who has embodied the art of teacher’s pettery quite as gloriously as Mason Mount. His recent injury issues may have frustrated Erik ten Hag but the Dutchman would be the outlier among Mount’s previous coaches, all of whom have surely described him as some variation of “an absolute dream to work with”.
It is already possible to sense that sort of connection building between Amorim and “Mase”, who the Portuguese praises a couple of times during the session.
The assumption was that Mount and Harry Maguire were media insiders pushing the Gareth Southgate PR machine as the main beneficiaries of what would have been a hilariously insane yet frequently mooted appointment. The mistake was in forgetting that Mount is uniquely capable of morphing his skillset to match precisely what any given coach needs – which in big 2024 tends to just be ‘lots of running around’.
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3) Amorim gave more focus to the concept of a midfield in his first training session than Ten Hag in two years. Beyond his work with Mount, maybe the most fascinating insight into the future were the two moments Manchester United’s new manager chose to single out Kobbie Mainoo for personal enlightenment.
One masterclass of concentrated pointing implies that Amorim has been learning from the early coaching stylings of Jordan Henderson, with Mainoo absorbing clear instructions on how footwork, movement, body shape and posture can be used properly to open up multiple passing options.
In an earlier clip, Mainoo takes two touches to control and offload a simple Jonny Evans ball instead of making a one-touch pass to Casemiro. And in fairness the teenager might have developed an innate inability to properly trust his midfield partner over the past 12 months or so.
A later drill shows the first XI attacking and Mainoo clipping the ball over to Tyrell Malacia as Amorim applauds, possibly in shock at the mere presence of the left-back but maybe also because Mainoo has already acted on his advice.
The lesson we learned? That based on their respective brands of frenetic pointing which look remarkably deranged out of context, Amorim might already be better than Tony Adams.
4) He is not, however, a man without foibles. Amorim is mortal and with that comes familiar defects: malice, acrimony, a strong sense of vengefulness. His hate can only be contained for so long without being properly channelled.
At one stage he initiates a defensive drill in which Evans has to bring down a high ball and offload it to a teammate, all with one touch. Amorim himself applies the pressure to the centre-half, a clear form of retribution for Evans equalising in a Champions League group game against his Braga side in October 2012.
Evans does not struggle to accomplish the task and Amorim is left to admit defeat to a man who will probably outlast both him and time itself at Old Trafford.
5) Amorim had ‘his very own whistle’. Man Utd are back, baby. Although discontented players taking the mick out of that is definite Athletic long-read fodder when he is sacked in 18 months.
